What To Do After You Freeze And Forget What To Say In English

Freezing in an English conversation or during the CELPIP exam can be nerve-racking and can totally bring your confidence down to zero.

In this episode of the Speak English Fearlessly podcast, you'll learn practical tips and strategies to overcome one of the most commonly held fears: speaking in front of someone else.

I'll share a time that I froze in public while I was learning Spanish, and pass on the lessons that I Iearned from it - and yes, you do survive such embarrassing moments! (I have plenty I could tell you about!)

Listen to get three introvert-approved techniques to handle those awful moments when you freeze and forget everything you thought you knew about English!

Links mentioned today:

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The National Social Anxiety Center - Public Speaking Anxiety

University of Florida - Public Speaking: Getting beyond the fear through the three P's

00:00 Introduction: The Fear of Freezing in English Conversations

01:59 Welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly Podcast

03:54 Personal Story: Overcoming Freezing Moments in Spanish

08:24 Practical Tips to Overcome Freezing in English

17:24 Bonus Tip: Handling Shyness in English Conversations

18:37 Conclusion and Encouragement

Freezing in the middle of a conversation in English is scary and embarrassing and the stuff nightmares are made of. At least for me, anyway. You suddenly can't think of what to say next and you feel your cheeks flushing red, your temperature exploding, and you are suddenly wanting to vanish.

But you can't. Instead, you're stuck fumbling with your words trying to find a way to say what you want to say or you simply fall silent and feel totally ashamed of yourself. Or on the CELPIP exam, and this happens to so many people, you're already feeling nervous because of your test day. When that speaking section begins and you see the timer start, you suddenly find yourself frozen.

You panic. What do I say? It's like suddenly everything that you thought you knew about English disappears. It vanishes from your mind. The results of freezing when you try to use your English in everyday life can literally cripple your progress.

Instead of you trying again, If you let it, that experience of freezing and forgetting what you want to say can make us avoid everything that has to do with using English again. After all, who wants to experience that more than once? And on the CELPIP exam, freezing, well, it can totally lower your scores on the exam.

So what can you do about it? I'm glad you asked that question, my friend, because today I'm going to share with you some helpful tips for you. So that you can deal with this very frequently asked question. Let's get started.

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Well, hello there and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam. I also love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people. People just like you who are working towards becoming fluent in English so we can learn from their experiences together.

Who am I? Well, my name is Aaron Nelson, and I've been an English teacher for over 17 years now, and I help students prepare for the CELPIP exam through online classes. If you're just joining us, if today's your very first day downloading this podcast, welcome and where have you been? I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for downloading. I hope that you enjoy this episode and that if you struggle with speaking in front of other people in English, I hope today's episode gives you some useful or helpful ideas to help you overcome it from someone who knows what that's feel. from someone who knows what that feels like to struggle and to feel frozen before someone else.

And you just want to disappear. Yeah. I know all about that one. And Hey, if you are returning listener, if you've been here multiple times before, if you've downloaded my episodes and you keep coming back, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I am so thankful for you and for you lending me your ears each week.

I appreciate you coming back. So what do you do with all of this? What do you do when you freeze up and you absolutely forget what you want to say either on the CELPIP exam or in just everyday normal interactions? Well, to begin, I'm just going to share a really quick story. from my own experiences of trying to learn Spanish.

So if you've been listening for a while, then you will likely know that my second language is Spanish. I lived in Mexico city for over 16 years, which was where I went from zero Spanish to being able to engage with pretty much anyone I needed to in the language. Now that took, a long, really long time to get there, like really long.

I have countless stories that I could share with you of freezing or simply getting embarrassingly stuck when I was talking in Spanish, one story that comes to mind, and I've shared this in a, an earlier episode of like from a long time ago, so I'm just going to pull it back and say it again, share it again, because Maybe you haven't heard it.

And that was one of my first attempts to go grocery shopping all by myself. Grocery shopping. Now that sounds like a pretty harmless thing to do, doesn't it? And you're right, mostly it is. You almost never need to interact with anyone when you're out there trying to get what you need to get in the grocery store, other than to smile at someone and just stay out of their way.

That's pretty easy. Until Of course, you need to start paying for the stuff that you picked and put into your cart. Then, you have to face the cashier. Now, in my story, I didn't think at all about this interaction until I was actually face to face with the nice cashier in the Mexico City supermarket where I was shopping.

I remember her looking right at me as she began passing my items through the scanner and asked, What almost every single cashier around the world asks, Did you find what you were looking for? Only it was in Spanish. And at that time When she asked me that question, I had only about, ooh, probably about 10 Spanish words in my vocabulary, so I basically had zero idea what she was asking me.

I looked at her dumbly for what felt like an eternity, my mouth likely wide open, and I found myself suddenly very much aware of the people behind me in the line. It felt like eternity. Everything in the store stopped, like the music playing overhead, you know, how grocery stores play nice, relaxing music.

It felt like everything stopped. The music stopped. It felt like all the shoppers in that big, massive grocery store stopped and crowded around me to watch. It felt like all eyes were on me. even though they weren't. Everybody else was doing what they were normally doing, doing their grocery shopping. It was just me and the cashier and the line of people behind me.

But it sure felt like in that moment that the entire world had stopped and had come to watch me make an utter fool of myself. In that moment, I didn't know what to say. I didn't reply. I didn't know how. So the cashier leaned forward and repeated the question with a bright, friendly smile. Oh man, oh man, I felt like such an idiot.

So, I shrugged, I smiled, and I pathetically tried to say something like, Lo siento, no hablo espanol. I don't speak Spanish. Then I handed her my money and tried my best to just get away from there as fast as I could. It was so horrible. So I know all about freezing, my friend, and what it feels like to forget every single word you thought you knew.

When you suddenly find yourself under pressure and needing to use those words. I know all about that. This is, unfortunately, a common question that I get in my email. I feel so much pressure when I see the timer begin on the CELPIP exam that I forget what to say. I'm going to read that question again because I get it so often.

I feel so much pressure. That when I see that timer begin on the exam, I suddenly forget what to say. If that's you, then you've come to the right place because I've got three practical introvert approved ideas that will help you get unstuck and ready for your exam or your next conversation in English.

Ready? Number one, you've got to know you're not alone. I've said this so many times, but it's vital that you hear it. But not only hear it, I want you to believe that it's true. You are not alone with this. You're not the only one struggling with this, even though your brain likes to try and make you think that you are the only one.

I mean, that's what that inner voice loves to tell us, isn't it? It loves to tell me that. You're the only one who sucks at this. But in reality, you're not. Statistics say that almost 70 percent of the population, 70, that's a 7 0, 70 percent of the population struggles with public speaking, according to the University of Florida.

leaning closer to that 70 percent because lots of people fear this. Lots of people are not good in front of other people. Even if it's a small group, even if it's in a grocery store in a line trying to pay for your groceries for many people, that is an intensely difficult social interaction.

So yeah, either way, 40 percent or 70%, it's a lot of people and you need to know that that's true. Knowing that you're not the only one. I know it doesn't change the fear that you feel, but it can help you to change what you tell yourself when you do experience this.. I don't suck. I am not the only one who struggles with this.

You know what? Changing what you tell yourself can give you hope to keep going. You can shut down that voice, that evil little voice inside of you that keeps saying you are the only one and you totally suck at this. You're terrible with English. You should just give up. No, you can tell your brain or that little voice that keeps whispering or yelling that to you.

No, I'm not the only one. Like 70 percent of the population around me struggles with this. I am in good company. So no, you are not the only one. Number two,

Do it again, but come armed. According to the National Social Anxiety Center, and my own personal experience, and I'm going to quote from the National Social Anxiety Center here, they say that, "avoiding what frightens us makes it bigger in our mind." End quote. And actually, I'm going to say it again, because it's a really good quote.

Here it goes. "Avoiding what frightens us makes it bigger in our mind." Whoo. Have you ever noticed that to be true? I sure have. When you experience something scary. Of course you want to avoid it in the future. Like speaking in front of someone else, for example, for me, I desperately wanted to never go grocery shopping again, but thankfully my need to keep eating forced me to return to that same grocery store again, but this time I learned what I needed to say when faced with that common cashier question, I came armed, that's what I meant by do it again.

become armed, be prepared.

So learning what I needed to say in that situation made a massive difference for me. Yes, I still felt very nervous. I still worried that I'd screw up or even worse, I'd face a follow up question that I wasn't ready for. But you know what? It didn't happen that way. The interaction went smoothly and I got through easily, and each subsequent grocery store visit got easier and easier the more I did it.

The lesson for you is this, even if you feel like you made the biggest fool out of yourself while using your English, do your best to get yourself back into that same situation again as soon as you can, but come armed. with something to say, let that mistake, let that moment where you didn't know how to respond be what focuses your study time on what to say.

That's what I did. I went home and I asked all of my Spanish speaking friends, Hey, the grocery store clerk said this to me and I had no idea what to respond. And they were the ones who helped me to learn what I needed to say so that the next time I would know what to do. All right. So let that mistake be what focuses your attention on getting ready for the next time.

But definitely don't avoid it. Put yourself back into that same situation again, as quickly as you can so that you can deal with it. Finally, number three. Focus on preparation and practice, not memorizing what to say. You know what? Trying to memorize a templated answer is the absolute worst thing you can do, especially on the CELPIP exam.

You know, when you memorize an answer like that, you are putting your score at risk, because the CELPIP test raters are trained to listen and spot those words. Templated answers. And if they do find a templated answer, they'll probably penalize you. They'll lower your score. Do you know why? Because it's not your answer. They want your answers. They want you to demonstrate your ability to answer that question, not somebody else's. So don't do it. And by the way, picking up a question, on a templated answer is super easy to pick out. All they need to do is listen to that perfectly sounding, uh, answer and compare it to everything else that you say in the conversation.

There's likely this very different. feel or this very different style on one side. It feels very mechanical. It feels very well put together. And then later when you move away from that template and answer, like you're speaking style is different. It stands out is what I'm trying to say. And it's not easy to hide, especially if you are a trained rater who knows what to listen for.

So don't do that to yourself. And in real life, interactions seldom follow a predictable formula. Like, when person A says X, you say Y, and then they will say No.

Most conversations flow all over the place, with very little predictability. And if you rely on memorizing what to say, and the situation that you are trying to memorize for doesn't actually go the way that you memorized it, Then you'll likely find yourself stuck and frozen all over again. The National Social Anxiety Center article that I've been talking about also mentions this point.

And I'll be linking to it in my show notes so that you can read it if you're interested. What's more important? Then memorizing is practicing what you want to say, repeatedly, and listening for other responses your interaction could generate. In the case of grocery shopping for me, I quickly found myself needing to deal with normal friendly interactions that went beyond, did you find everything you were looking for?

To so, how's your day going so far? And it's so lovely outside today, isn't it? Or have a wonderful afternoon. Unpredictable. You never knew what was going to come your way. The best way forward is practicing, listening, preparing, and trying it out. Likely making another mistake and then preparing again and learning what I could say for the next time and repeat.

It's more important to hear what happens next. and trying to anticipate what you would say in that situation and coming prepared for it the next time. Little by little, the more you do that, the more confidence will grow for you. And that leads me to a final bonus tip. If you struggle with being shy, the difficulty level of using your English in front of others goes sky high, doesn't it?

Speaking in general is tough for you. I know this from personal experience and it's even worse or it feels even worse when you're trying to do this speaking thing in front of other people but in a whole other language. It just feels way more difficult. So if that's you, here's my best tip for you. Keep it simple.

Simple. Aim for small interactions with just one person at first. Simple. Small is beautiful. But do it often. Do it often. Keep it small, but do it frequently. Because, as I said before, the more you repeat something, the more your confidence will slowly begin to increase. And like I said, I know this from personal experience.

I hope this helps you as you are working to overcome that freezing moment. Don't let it stop you. Get back out there and try it again, but come armed, come prepared. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope that you'll come back and join me again next Tuesday for the next edition of the Speak English Fearlessly podcast.

Have a great week. Bye bye